Ordinary phonograph record merchandising as it exists today is a stupid process which concerns itself essentially with pieces of plastic, wrapped in pieces of cardboard.

These objects, in quantity, are heavy and expensive to ship. The manufacturing process is complicated and crude. Quality control for the stamping of the discs is an exercise in futility. The system is subject to pilferage (as, in some instances, pressing 'over-runs' have been initiated, with the quantity pressed above the amount of the legitimate order removed from the premises and sold on the black market).

Dissatisfied customers routinely return records because they are warped and will not play.

Large numbers of people are employed in the field of 'record promotion' . . . these salaries are, for the most part, a waste of money.

New digital technology may eventually solve the warpage problem and provide the consumer with better quality sound in the form of Compact Discs [C.D.'s]. They are smaller, contain more music, and would, presumably cost less to ship . . . but, they are much more expensive to buy and manufacture. To reproduce them, the consumer needs to purchase a digital device to replace his old hi-fi equipment (in the $700 price range).

The bulk of the promotional effort at every record company today is expended on "NEW MATERIAL" . . . the latest and the greatest of whatever the cocaine-tweezed A&R Brass has decided to inflict on everybody. More often than not, these 'aesthetic decisions' result in mountains of useless vinyl/cardboard artifacts which cannot be sold at any price, and are therefore returned for disposal and recycling. These mistakes are expensive.

Put aside momentarily the current method of operation and think what is being wasted in terms of GREAT CATALOG ITEMS, squeezed out of the market place because of limited rack space in retail outlets, and the insatiable desire of quota-conscious company reps to fill every available niche with THIS WEEK'S NEW RELEASES.

Every major record company has vaults full of (and perpetual rights to) great recording by major artists in many categories which might still provide enjoyment to music consumers if they were made available in the right way. MUSIC CONSUMERS LIKE TO CONSUME MUSIC . . . NOT PIECES OF VINYL WRAPPED IN PIECES OF CARDBOARD.

It is our proposal to take advantage of the POSITIVE ASPECTS of a NEGATIVE TREND afflicting the record industry today: HOME TAPING via cassette of material released on vinyl.

First of all, we must realize that the taping of albums is not motivated by 'stinginess' alone . . . if a consumer makes a home tape from a disc, that copy will probably sound better than a commercially manufactured high-speed dupe cassette, legitimately released by the company.

People today enjoy music more than ever before, and, they like to take it with them wherever they go. THEY CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AUDIO AND BAD AUDIO . . . THEY CARE ABOUT THAT DIFFERENCE, AND THEY ARE WILLING TO GO TO SOME TROUBLE AND EXPENSE TO HAVE HIGH QUALITY 'PORTABLE AUDIO' TO USE AS 'WALLPAPER FOR THEIR LIFESTYLE'.

THE ANSWERS TO PERPLEXING QUESTIONS

presenting: "Q.C.I."

We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to F-1 (SONY consumer level digital tape encoder), Beta Hi-Fi, or ordinary analog cassette (requiring the installation of a rentable D-A converter in the phone itself . . . the main chip is about $12).

All accounting for royalty payments, billing to the customer, etc. would be automatic, built into the initial software for the system.

The consumer has the option of subscribing to one or more Interest Categories, charged at a monthly rate, without regard for the quantity of music he or she decides to tape.

Providing material in such quantity at a reduced cost could actually diminish the desire to duplicate and store it, since it would be available any time day or night.

Monthly listings could be provided by catalog, reducing the on-line storage requirements of the computer. The entire service would be accessed by phone, even if the local reception is via TV cable.

The advantage of the TV cable is: on those channels where nothing ever seems to happen (there's about 70 of them in L.A.), a visualization of the original cover art, including song lyrics, technical data, etc., could be displayed while the transmission is in progress, giving the project an electronic whiff of the original point-of-purchase merchandising built into the album when it was 'an album', since there are many consumers who like to fondle & fetish the packaging while the music is being played. In this situation, Fondlement & Fetishism Potential [F.F.P.] is supplied, without the cost of shipping tons of cardboard around.

We require a LARGE quantity of money and the services of a team of mega-hackers to write the software for this system. Most of the hardware devices are, even as you read this, available as off-the-shelf items, just waiting to be plugged into each other so they can put an end to "THE RECORD BUSINESS" as we now know it.

I have always read it that way. I started a post on this subject many moons ago.

I beleive 1200 to 2400 BAUD rate were the first modems I had used back in the day when Frank wrote that information that seems to be copywrighted. In those days most users were connected to some mainframe IBM system where small text files were transfered via upload or download but in the direct application for some music download format replacing Vinyl or whatever format music is sold in the physical sense I think Frank Zappa deserves not only the credit but some serious form of financial compensation.

Yes Frank was thinking years ahead of his time. I can see if Frank was a friend of Bill Gates that his thinking would have been deveolped under Intercontinental Obserdities Downloads or something. Frank deserves so much credit as a pioneer of thought on this and quite a few other marketing trends.

Does the ZFT deserve a piece of the action on all the money that is collected for each and every musical downloads? I think so.

I-Tunes and all the rest of them should be forking over a few pennies for each and every download. Another example on how Frank was fucked over time and time again by the many evils of the music industry.

What do I know? I'm just a ZFT Religious Zealot.

_________________Trendmonger's Moment Of Clarity

FZ "Read It And Weep"
April 17,1981

Frank Zappa left the ZFT in Control of his Vaults and Artistic rights.
We the fans are not in control. We have a choice to use our eyes and ears or read it and weep.

I have always read it that way. I started a post on this subject many moons ago.

I beleive 1200 to 2400 BAUD rate were the first modems I had used back in the day when Frank wrote that information that seems to be copywrighted. In those days most users were connected to some mainframe IBM system where small text files were transfered via upload or download but in the direct application for some music download format replacing Vinyl or whatever format music is sold in the physical sense I think Frank Zappa deserves not only the credit but some serious form of financial compensation.

Yes Frank was thinking years ahead of his time. I can see if Frank was a friend of Bill Gates that his thinking would have been deveolped under Intercontinental Obserdities Downloads or something. Frank deserves so much credit as a pioneer of thought on this and quite a few other marketing trends.

Does the ZFT deserve a piece of the action on all the money that is collected for each and every musical downloads? I think so.

I-Tunes and all the rest of them should be forking over a few pennies for each and every download. Another example on how Frank was fucked over time and time again by the many evils of the music industry.

What do I know? I'm just a ZFT Religious Zealot.

You have really fallen off your rocker man. Did you shave your head yet??

_________________Make your checks payable to QUENTIN ROBERT DeNAMELAND, Greatest Living Philostopher Known to Mankind.

I have always read it that way. I started a post on this subject many moons ago.

I beleive 1200 to 2400 BAUD rate were the first modems I had used back in the day when Frank wrote that information that seems to be copywrighted. In those days most users were connected to some mainframe IBM system where small text files were transfered via upload or download but in the direct application for some music download format replacing Vinyl or whatever format music is sold in the physical sense I think Frank Zappa deserves not only the credit but some serious form of financial compensation.

Yes Frank was thinking years ahead of his time. I can see if Frank was a friend of Bill Gates that his thinking would have been deveolped under Intercontinental Obserdities Downloads or something. Frank deserves so much credit as a pioneer of thought on this and quite a few other marketing trends.

Does the ZFT deserve a piece of the action on all the money that is collected for each and every musical downloads? I think so.

I-Tunes and all the rest of them should be forking over a few pennies for each and every download. Another example on how Frank was fucked over time and time again by the many evils of the music industry.

What do I know? I'm just a ZFT Religious Zealot.

It's Intercontinental Absurdities, you fucking moron!!!

_________________Make your checks payable to QUENTIN ROBERT DeNAMELAND, Greatest Living Philostopher Known to Mankind.

If anything, this idea was way ahead of its time. I kind of doubt whether it was even technologically possible in 1983 with the general state of technology back then. Think about it, I don't really know about the US but true video on demand only became available in the mid 90s over here, and even then it was pretty immature technology.

Like with everything else, FZ appears to have been way ahead of his time.

_________________"When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone in the air. You can never capture it again." -- Eric Dolphy

To answer your question COPY would only seem to relate to a COPY OF THE MUSIC, All music not just his music. A COPY OF MUSIC in a DIGITAL FORMAT would be to a purchaser replacing LPs,Tapes, CD............

Take a look at the history of recorded music. I beleive first there may have been some form of drum, then the record/player, then the tape/players, then the Compact Disk, DVD Disks so on and so on. Frank explained how the economics of traditional merchandizing is not efficient and that the digital medium coud eliminate so much red tape. Sort of reminds you of why a piece of thread costs $100 in a mlilitary budget.

Somewhere along the lines someone created a way for PC users to Compress Audio in a variety of formats where the audio quality and space required differn significantly but music regardless was put into this compressed format where it could find it's way to an existing download medium via the internet a long, long time fter Frank copyrighted the idea.

While Downloadind existed in the early 80s the Word Wide Web that offers a varierty of downloaing schemes did not pop up until arround 1990.

So back in 1983 when FranK Zappa developed that PROPOSAL FOR A SYSTEM TO REPLACE ORDINARY RECORD MERCHANDISING take it for what it is in 1983.

The Client Server Model of the PC world did not exist in 1983. Downloads at that time were done via Dial Up and at very slow BAUD rates. Regardless if it could be done in the short term meaning developing all equipment necessary at that time. Zappa's thought was there copyrighted in 1983.

Just because Downloading and Uploading had a practical use in 1983 for rrelatively small quantities of text as used in BASIC programing language of Personal Computers or Uploading and Downloading information for IBM Mainframe Programming such as Cobol and Assembler Frank seemed to be the only one taking that thought of the Download Concept to replace the laaarge costs of producing music for physical records or cds through distribution or mail order.

Central Scrutinizer - Joes Garage

Now you see, some places in the Third World it might be difficult to dance to this because the kerosene record player is not a very efficient device

Frank beleived in it so much that he wanted to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], If Frank would have had financial backing FranK Zappa would have become the largest distributor of musical product starting out with a very large Q.C.I. database and then when Downloadign took over as the main form of purchasing music he could have had monopolized on the transport and possible having the entire record industry in his hands.

Hey I think big. Like many of Franks' ideas they were years ahead of their time but some concepts take alot of financial backing to get them to move . . forward. Take a close listen to FranK Zappa's lawyer in Frank Zappa American Composer where he talks of of some of the ideas Frank would come to him with. I beleive in one Frank wanted to buy his own satelite. The lawyer responded asking Frank if he knew how much a satelite costs. Frank's responce was soemthind along the lines of. You think too small.

Pioneers of thought like Frank Zappa thinkd big, real big.

PROPOSAL FOR A SYSTEM TO REPLACE
ORDINARY RECORD MERCHANDISING excerpt
copyright Frank Zappa's 1983

We propose to acquire the rights to digitally duplicate and store THE BEST of every record company's difficult-to-move Quality Catalog Items [Q.C.I.], store them in a central processing location, and have them accessible by phone or cable TV, directly patchable into the user's home taping appliances, with the option of direct digital-to-digital transfer to F-1 (SONY consumer level digital tape encoder), Beta Hi-Fi, or ordinary analog cassette (requiring the installation of a rentable D-A converter in the phone itself . . . the main chip is about $12).

_________________Trendmonger's Moment Of Clarity

FZ "Read It And Weep"
April 17,1981

Frank Zappa left the ZFT in Control of his Vaults and Artistic rights.
We the fans are not in control. We have a choice to use our eyes and ears or read it and weep.

Last edited by Trendmonger on Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:43 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I think Frank had been around long enough to see how technology continued to evolve and maybe, without actually spelling it out in this writing, figured if the ball got started rolling the technology would eventually find a way to get it done.

The importatnt thing is not the HOW of implementing the process, it's merely the thinking of creating a catalog (stockpile?) of recordings that could be accessed/purchased by the consumer (which IS what we have now) that shows once again the genius of FZ.

Not having the internet & PC's, he was just applying the most likely means of communication/transmission available at the time (phone & cable) to get it done, again, figuring that by the time the product was in place even those archaic mediums would evlove sufficiently to facilitate the process.

_________________...And it was useless anymore
Yes, it was (back up, back up!) anymore
(Hey, you're hurtin' Joey Psychotic!)
Yes, it was useless anymore
(Move back now!)

I think Frank had been around long enough to see how technology continued to evolve and maybe, without actually spelling it out in this writing, figured if the ball got started rolling the technology would eventually find a way to get it done.

The importatnt thing is not the HOW of implementing the process, it's merely the thinking of creating a catalog (stockpile?) of recordings that could be accessed/purchased by the consumer (which IS what we have now) that shows once again the genius of FZ.

Not having the internet & PC's, he was just applying the most likely means of communication/transmission available at the time (phone & cable) to get it done, again, figuring that by the time the product was in place even those archaic mediums would evlove sufficiently to facilitate the process.

Well put! Even without knowing exactly how the technology would evolve, he knew that the recording industry could not sustain much longer the built-in inefficiencies of shipping a bunch of cardboard around the globe (and storing it). So he foresaw the "on-demand" electronic transfer of musical goods, and offered a prototype example using the existing technology of the day. Thought it was quite clever when I first read it in the Real FZ Book, and I'd nearly forgotten about it until now...but it's quite brilliant.

_________________Let's hear it again for the London Philharmonic Orchestra!

No, no, silly. Frank copyrighted the written ARTICLE, not the technology. For that, he would have needed a patent; which he presumably did not pursue. Sure, it's way ahead of it's time and impressive but, uh, so was Gene Roddenbury (sp?) and I don't think his Trust collects moola for every cell phone sold.

over the past few months, regular listeners of marc maron's wtf podcast have heard the comedian rail about a patent troll that is threatening the livelihood of many podcasters. for those of you who don't listen, maron has also written about it on his blog. here's the gist:

'if you all weren't aware yet you should know that some podcasters are under attack from patent trolls; adam carolla is actually being sued...a patent troll called personal audio claims to own the patent for podcasting and is suing adam and some other podcasts and sent letters of coercion to me and about a dozen others'

in another blog post -- in which maron also also attempts to crowdsource a solution to the problem -- he describes exactly what personal audio is claiming: specifically, the ridiculous claim that it invented an apparatus for disseminating a series of episodes represented by media files via the internet as said episodes become available, the lawyers fighting this particular troll needed to prove that someone else had come up with a similar idea before october 2, 1996, and maron was hoping his fans might be able to help

in a recent episode of wtf maron interviewed moon zappa, and we all found out that frank zappa may just be the savior that podcasters needed... as it turns out, a fan happened to be reading frank zappa's autobiography and noticed that good old frank had once come up with the idea to disseminate pieces of content over the phone lines; this was long before the internet became part of most of our lives, and the people zappa tried to sell the idea to laughed him out of the office.

maron also talks to the electronic frontier foundation at the beginning of the episode about a petition they recently filed in this specific case ... it's unclear if the eff is specifically using zappa as part of the defense [or how big of a part his idea would play], but i'd like to think of the late, great zappa pleased that he's able to help fight off trolls from beyond the grave

wasent Zappa about the first to suggest aids was created by the government?Wasent Zappa among the first to question the legitimacy of the star wars program?Dident Zappa predict Kent state two years before it happened?Dident Zappa say "death valley days straight ahead" two years before Reagan took office?

wasn't Zappa about the first to suggest aids was created by the government? NoWasn't Zappa among the first to question the legitimacy of the star wars program? Not even closeDidn't Zappa predict Kent state two years before it happened? How so?Didn't Zappa say "death valley days straight ahead" two years before Reagan took office? Recorded in 1980. No.

Zappa is your modern day Nostradamus

No.

_________________One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.

wasn't Zappa about the first to suggest aids was created by the government? NoWasn't Zappa among the first to question the legitimacy of the star wars program? Not even closeDidn't Zappa predict Kent state two years before it happened? How so?Didn't Zappa say "death valley days straight ahead" two years before Reagan took office? Recorded in 1980. No.

Zappa is your modern day Nostradamus

No.

Good argument!

_________________You have just destroyed one model XQJ-37 Nuclear Powered Pan-Sexual Roto-PlookerAnd you're gonna have to pay for it!

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